


No More Time To Play

by Falling_In_Flames



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Soldiers, Gen, Kidnapping, Red Room (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-20 13:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8250082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falling_In_Flames/pseuds/Falling_In_Flames
Summary: Lila Barton had not been targeted at random.
Love is weakness. 
It was time that the Black Widow was reminded of that. 
This was Yelena Belova's mission.





	1. Chapter 1

The laughter of small children rang though the air like a litany of bells, clear and bright in the afternoon sun. The children were on a school trip to the museum to see Tony Stark’s Avengers Exhibit. The Exhibit was on its current stop during its fourth national tour and, having departed from the bus, the children were currently milling around under a banner hanging in the lobby that proudly proclaimed that all proceeds would go to those effected in the Washington Disaster.

This was the Kindergarten group, the school having arranged the visits one year at a time, starting with the oldest first. This was done purposely, an attempt by the school to have a routine in place by the time the youngest ones arrived so the children would be able to get a more involved experience and teachers would be able to keep closer track of their charges.

One of the girls in the group was barely able to contain her anticipation, braid swaying as she bounced on her toes and barley listening to her teacher explain what to do if someone became separated from the main group. She was one of the youngest here, just a tiny slip of a thing and easily the smallest out her class of twenty-eight.

She was one of twenty-eight.

How ironically appropriate that Lila Nicole Barton was one of twenty-eight children on this class trip. Soon, she would be joining another class of twenty-eight, all girls, all taken from their families and delivered to the Red Room for indoctrination and training.

Lila Barton had not been targeted at random like the other girls were, instead she had been selected for two very important reasons. The first reason was because of who her father was; Clinton Francis Barton codename: Hawkeye. The man who had stolen the Black Widow from Russia.

It had taken the Red Room nearly a decade of carful surveillance to discover where Hawkeye went on his quarterly leave, many times taking the Widow with him, and the answer couldn’t be more quaint – Clint Barton had a family. Tucked safely away on a little farm out in the middle of Nowhere-Waverly Iowa was a wife, a son and a daughter.

Undercover work was considered and quickly discarded, instead several more years were spent in carful long distance observation to get information without raising suspicion. They had managed to uncover three things about the family; Barton’s visiting schedule, where the wife did the shopping and where the children went to school. The Red Room could not risk placing an agent undercover closer as that would draw the attention of Natalia Alianovna Romanova codename: Black Widow. 

Natalia Romanova, or Natasha Romanoff as she called herself now, was the second reason that Lila Barton had been specifically chosen. Natasha had once been the Red Room’s greatest achievement, before she defected to America. S.H.I.E.L.D. had convinced Natasha that she had a place in the world, that she was worthy of love. She had been accepted into Barton’s little family and grown soft and complacent, truly believing that she had escaped her past. Now she was nothing more than an embarrassment to the Red Room.

Love is weakness.

It was time that Natalia was reminded of that.

And for Clint Barton to learn that there were consequences for causing the dissention of the Black Widow.

Over the past week the school and the museum had been both been reconnoitered, the classes observed as they came and went, the shifts of the museum staff learned and the blind spots in the security cameras noted.

The mission was high risk with as it involved a high profile target and it had been entrusted to a specifically selected Operative.

This was Yelena Belova’s mission.

The Red Room superiors were confident that Yelena could collect the child and be gone before any could notice that the child was missing.

By the time word could get to Hawkeye or the Black Widow, Lila Barton would be one of twenty-eight.

During her surveillance, Yelena had entered the museum many times to map the layout of the building and take note of class arrival and departure times, she signed in using different names and changed her hair and eye colours each day to avoid detection.

Today she was Ellen Greene with straight brown hair and light brown eyes and had made sure to enter the museum a few minutes before the school bus arrived and was writing her name in the book on the sign in desk when the children began to enter.

“Don’t mind them, Dearie.” Said the secretary with ‘Debbie’ on her name tag, “It’s a school trip from out in the farming area. Been coming and going all week they have, but this is the last lot, thank goodness.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Yelena said with her ‘sweet-girl’ smile. Debbie was one of the few staff members she had yet to interact with and already she was finding the woman irritating with her instant use patronizing endearments.

Still, Yelena decided to take advantage of the chance to linger in the lobby and engaged the woman in conversation. “I think I’m just as excited as they are. This is my first time visiting by myself.”

“By yourself!” Debbie gasped, eyes widening in shock. “I thought you had rushed in ahead of your parents.”  She leant over the sign in desk, looked Yelena up and down before sitting back in her chair, her voice an irritating coo as she said, “I’m sorry sweetie, but we have an age limit for solo visitors. You can’t be more than eight.”

Yelena let herself bounce on her toes, seemingly nervous and said, “I’m twelve, I promise. I’m just short. I’m homeschooled but my Dad had an appointment today, so he said I could come here instead.”

Recon had revealed the age limit early on but it had never been a problem before, the staff too frazzled by the sudden influx of rowdy school children to anything but take Yelena at her word when she insisted that she was twelve.

This woman, however, was proving to be annoying in more ways than one.

“Do you have a phone number I could call him on? Not that I don’t believe you, darling. Just to check, rules you know?”

Yelena forced the hot flash of annoyance deep down to where it couldn’t be seen on her face. “Um, I have his mobile number, but I’m only supposed to call if it’s an emergency.” Her handler would not be pleased if he had to step in just to get her in the door. She let crocodile tears well and chewed on her bottom lip, “I really can’t come in? I be good, I won’t be noisy or anything I promise. I really am twelve.”

Debbie looked unconvinced, “When’s your birthday, honey?”

This non-sequitur was a trick normally used by movie theaters to catch children attempting to enter age restricted screenings, the random seaming question flustering them enough into an automatic and truthful answer, unwittingly revealing their real age. A clever child might recognise the trap but would usually take too long calculating the correct year and be caught just as quickly.

“May 21st, 2002.” Yelena replied instantly, allowing a slightly confused look to cross her face. It was even the truth, more or less.

Although she wasn’t sure about the day or even the month, Yelena knew that during the year 2014 she was twelve years old. It was November now, the year nearly over. Soon Yelena would be thirteen.

At 4”10 and 70 lbs. Yelena really was just very small for her age.

Debbie twisted her lips, clearly reluctant to believe the tiny girl in front of her desk was twelve but with a heavy sigh she conceded said no more on the subject. Instead, she reached into a draw and pulled out a pamphlet, opening it so Yelena could see the map inside.

“Well, if it’s your first time by yourself you don’t want to get lost now, do you, Sugar?”

Potential delay in the mission averted, Yelena split her attention and listened with one ear as Debbie began to explain the layout of the museum, turning slightly so she could surreptitiously watch the harried looking school teacher finally corral her charges into two haphazard lines and firmly instruct them to pay attention to their tour guide as he detailed their route through the exhibits.

The guide, Mr. Thompson, was certainly being punished for something as it had been solely his job to lead every single class of overexcited school children through the museum.

Having recited the exact same speech every day for the past week and half, Mr. Thompson’s voice was a disinterested monotone as he explained how the group would first visit the history section and then the space section, slowly working their way around the building until they reached the Avengers Exhibit.

Cries of denial broke out amongst the children as it had every day before when they realized that the exhibit they most wanted to see was being saved for last. The teacher raised her voice to regain order once again and Yelena located Lila Barton’s position, she was close to the end of the line and nearly completely obscured by her purple Hawkeye backpack.

Yelena could tell by the mulish tilt to her jaw that Lila was already planning to slip away from her group to see her father’s likeness on display. Good. It would make things simpler if she didn’t have to lure the child away from the group herself.

Yelena turned back to Debbie and patiently listened to the rest of her speech, ignoring the group of children behind her as they were lead rowdy and complaining to the first exhibit. When Debbie finished her attempt at being helpful Yelena thanked the woman with another sweet-girl smile and pocketed the map. Turning, Yelena moved in the opposite direction to the class, weaving her way around other visitors and moving deeper into the museum, heading straight for the Avengers Exhibit.

When Lila inevitably managed to slip past the overworked teacher and bored tour guide Yelena would be waiting to meet her.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Yelena did not have to wait long. Barely twenty minutes had passed before she spotted Lila–The Girl turning a corner and walking straight up to the model of Hawkeye.

How cute the child’s love for her father was. How predictable.

Yelena moved from where she had been waiting in the shadows along the back wall and stopped just short entering the security camera’s line of sight. Yelena knew that she had been caught on camera entering the museum, but it would take some time for anyone to realize that she had avoided appearing on any other recording.

This was a small museum built for a rural town and apart from the front door and the loading dock out back, all of the security cameras where pointed towards the exhibits they guarded. While effective in ensuring that any thief would be caught, it meant that a carful person could make their way around the museum almost completely undetected. Even better, there was a truck currently parked in the loading bay, blocking the entirety of the far wall from the camera in the corner.

That would be her exit.

“Are you lost?” Yelena asked The Girl, layering her voice with concern. Even though she had made sure to make noise as she walked, the child startled and yelped, whirling around with wide eyes to face Yelena. Her situational awareness was shockingly poor for the child of an assassin.

No matter, the Red Room would correct that soon enough.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. My name’s Ellen.” Yelena said with a rueful smile, “It’s just- I saw your class coming in. I thought you guys went the other way.”

Contact established.

“I’m Lila and I’m not lost.” The Girl scowled, recovering from her shock enough to cross her arms over her chest and pout at being caught so quickly. “I just wanted to see –Hawkeye. He’s my favourite Avenger.”

There was a bit of a stutter in her words before ‘Hawkeye’. Had she really been about to say ‘Father’ or something similar? Had no one trained this girl at all?

At the very least someone could have taught her to lie better.

Really.

“My favourite is Thor,” Yelena said raising her voice to an excited pitch and indicating the prop dressed in the man’s likeness on the far left of the display. “He’s a prince, an _alien_ prince! And he can control lightning with his hammer. How awesome is that?”

“Thor’s pretty cool,” The Girl said, nodding as she turned to examine the Thor model closely. “But A-Black Widow is my second favourite.” She motioned abruptly and rather forcefully to the mannequin in question in an attempt to cover the fact that she had almost misspoke.

Again.

Yelena smiled sweetly and lent forward as if telling a secret. “Mine too.”  

Yelena let a companionable silence descend on them for a few moments before she made a show of starting and blinking rapidly, as if remembering something. She gave the smaller girl a knowing look and said, “As fun as talking about our favourite Avengers is, I think you should be getting back to your class, little girl.”

The pout returned in full force, “I’m not little, I’m six! You’re just a kid too. Where’s your class?”

Yelena grinned, “I’m twelve, that’s twice as old as six. And I’m home schooled with my sisters so I don’t even have a class.” She said, ending in a sing-song tone.

Yelena offered her hand and grinned wider at the frown it provoked. “Come on, I’ll walk you back so you don’t get lost again.” The Girl scowled harder and Yelena wiggled her fingers invitingly. With a huff she took the offered hand and squeezed harder than Yelena felt was truly necessary.

Begin extraction.

Yelena gently tugged The Girl forward and led her out of the exhibit and down the hallway, obstinately towards the history section but really heading for the out of sight staff only corridor with a back door to the loading docks. She took a long winding route, avoiding the cameras and hopefully confusing the girl about where they were really headed.

As they left the Avengers exhibit, the younger girl started chattering about how Hawkeye was the best Avenger. He had a bow! He never ever, ever missed! He was so cool! However, as Yelena finally turned them down the isolated corridor she suddenly fell silent and only gave a token tug of protest as Yelena pulled her under the velvet rope with a ‘Staff Only’. 

Yelena raised an eyebrow at The Girl. “What’s wrong?” Keeping up her Ellen Greene persona she gave The Girl an earnest look and said, “Oh, I know that sign said staff only but I’m a little lost. I thought that maybe someone down here could help us.”

“You’re lying.” The Girl’s face was blank, her voice even, but her hand shook badly in Yelena’s. “You’re not taking me back to my class are you?”

Yelena allowed a delighted grin spread across her face. Perhaps The Girl was smarter than she had thought. “No.”

“You’re here to take me away”

“Yes”

The Girl tugged harder on her hand, whimpering now, but Yelena kept her grip. She crouched until she was eye level with The Girl and tilted her head in consideration. This was not the reaction she had been expecting.

“Didn’t Hawkeye tell you what to do if someone tried to take you away?” There was no crying, no fighting, just a blank face and deep deliberate breathing. The Girl was trying to keep herself calm. Interesting.

The Girl nodded rapidly, blinking back tears. “Daddy said I have to scream as hard as I can, so that other people can hear me. I have to struggle and bite and scratch and do whatever I can to make you let go. Then I have to run as fast as I can back to other people and tell them that a Bad Person tried to take me.” She paused and took several gasping breaths, “But you’re not a Bad Person. You’re a Bad Girl.”

That was an interesting differentiation. Bad Person. Bad Girl. Yelena was curious enough to delay and question The Girl further. As long as she kept quiet and if she suddenly became loud, well, Yelena had ways of making her quiet again.

“What do you do if a Bad Girl comes to take you away?”

The Girl was gasping now, fighting back tears, but she did it quietly and lifted her chin. “A-A-Aunty Nat said-she said that I have to be quiet now. I have to not yell or fight or try to run. That-that would only get me hurt. She said that I have to be b-brave and try not to cry. Aunty Nat said-she said that I have to let you take me.” The Girl broke down, desperately pushing her free hand to her mouth to quiet her sobbing.

Yelena tipped her head back and laughed.

Aunty Nat.

_Aunty Nat._

Natalia had _known_. She had known that the Red Room would come. Not for her, but for the little girl she loved. And she had trained The Girl accordingly.

“That’s right” Yelena said, pushing down her mirth. “You keep quiet, you don’t fight me, you don’t try to run and I won’t hurt you.” She squeezed The Girl’s hand tightly, painfully, and waited her to nod in agreement.

Satisfied, Yelena stood and continued down the corridor, half-dragging the smaller girl behind her.

It was time to complete the mission.

 

 


End file.
